I'm in SW FL right now. Hurricane Milton passed through town on 10/09, preceded by Helene on 09/26. Couldn't be lovelier right now, highs around 88*F, nighttime lows around 72* F. Strong easterly breeze cooling us off right now. Finished all my post-hurricane repairs, heading back to Montreal tomorrow. I was lucky this time around; I lost an a/c condenser, had a little vegetation damage, a few shingles, but that's about it.
Some folks, not so lucky... on Manasota Key, I had to drive around a house....because it was in the middle of the roadway. Crossing the bridge to get to Manasota Key, there is a charter-boat in the 50'-60' range, broken in half, with its superstructure elsewhere, sitting on the side of the road where the bridge touches down on the Key. A few hundred feet further down the road, there is a charter fishing-boat in the 36'- 40' range sitting in the mangroves by the side of the road, at least a 100' from the nearest water. At the south end of Manasota Key, there were small, modest beach-side dwellings typically constructed of cement block. Most of their roofs are intact, but the walls; not so much. Looks like a bomb went off in each building. There are absolute mountains of sand and trashed construction materials, appliances , furnishings, vegetation and personal possessions everywhere! As if that were not enough, Milton cut a new pass ( a "pass" is a channel, in this case from the Gulf of Mexico to the inland waterway referred to as the ICW) across the southern end of Manasota Key, separating the lower 3/4 mile of the key from the rest of it! Oh, and its deep enough to be navigable!
Unless you have witnessed this sort of destruction in one form or another, you cannot conceive of the damage created by the force of nature. My hat is off to all of those who have experienced it, survived it and are either recovering from it or helping others recover.
. Definitely a bike riding day! Looking forward to what may be one of the last riding days of the season.
